Splendid singing sisters Ann Hampton Callaway and Liz Callaway were special guests at a salute by the New York Pops, founded by the late Skitch Henderson, to the music of the movies, led by Rob Fisher and billed as “Cinema Soundtracks,” at Carnegie Hall on March 24.

Ann Hampton Callaway offered a punchy “From This Moment On,” by Cole Porter, used in the film version of Kiss Me Kate, giving it her own jazzy twist, complete with scat singing and sudden high head tones. She evoked the sophistication of the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers era with a snappy “A Fine Romance,” by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields, from Swing Time, and delivered a thoroughly cathartic mother of all he-done-me-wrong songs, Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer’s title song from Blues in the Night, with her violinist ex-husband sitting right near her on stage.

Liz Callaway lent a silvery voice to Henry Mancini and Mercer’s “Moon River,” from Breakfast at Tiffany’s ; Richard and Robert Sherman’s “Feed the Birds,” from Mary Poppins ; and Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens’ “Journey to the Past,” from the animated film Anastasia , for which she provided the singing voice of the eponymous Russian princess.

The women indulged in some joyous “sibling revelry,” as their past show and DRG CD are called, with Irving Berlin’s lilting “Sisters,” from White Christmas, and collaborated on an ardent “With a Song in My Heart,” with mellifluous vocal variations, by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, from Spring Is Here.

Alfred Newman’s “20^th Century Fox Fanfare” served to herald Fisher and the Pops’ performances of impassioned outpourings from classics Laura , by David Raksin; Vertigo , with an ominous “Nightmare” and soaring love scene, by Bernard Herrmann; and Gone with the Wind , by Max Steiner, as well as more recent ringing selections from Close Encounters of the Third Kind , by John Williams, and from scores of films of William Shakespeare plays Much Ado about Nothing and Henry V, by Patrick Doyle.

Long Island’s Five Towns College Choir and its a cappella Vocal Jazz Ensemble proffered rather dulcet accounts of Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim’s “Somewhere,” from West Side Story ; Meredith Willson’s “Till There Was You,” from The Music Man ; Arlen and E.Y. Harburg’s “Over the Rainbow,” from The Wizard of Oz ; and, for a real Hollywood ending to their set, a jubilant “Climb Every Mountain,” by Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, from the finale to the movie The Sound of Music.

Television’s Jane Pauley was on hand to preside over the presentation of awards to deserving public school music teachers and their students from Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation, which provides instruments for school children.

The Callaway sisters, Fisher, and the Pops brought the evening to a rollicking close with a hot, gospel-style “Brotherhood of Man,” from Frank Loesser’s How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying, in memory of Henderson.

The Pops 23 ^rd birthday gala, “88 Keys for Skitch: A Celebration of the Piano,” takes place at Carnegie on May 8, led by Marvin Hamlisch and hosted by Elaine Stritch.

Rob Fisher, photo by Carol Rosegg, & Skitch Henderson, photo by Joseph R. Saporito

Carnegie Hall, 57 ^th Street & 7^th Avenue